We’re in a bit of a pickle. Breaking from norms is often incredibly uncomfortable, and produces a myriad of doubts. This “normative doubt” is one of the more effective ways that the status quo is enforced, and therefore deserves some attention.
Lauren Berlant has commented on the comforts of being in the vicinity of normality. There is, first and foremost, the comfort of a feeling of belonging. {The Female Complaint, 10.} This feeling derives from what Berlant calls “strong publics”—spaces of emotional identification that “organize [a] sense of belonging in a conventionally political register,” where there is “a fantasy of a sense of continuity, a sense of being generally okay.” These publics are effective because they capitalize on “a desire to be in proximity to okayness, without passing some test to prove it.” This, Berlant explains, is “the affective fantasy of the normal.” {The Female Complaint, 8, 9.}
One of the major comforts offered by participation in normality, Berlant explains, is that it shelters you from the frictions and uncertainties of political controversy. It offers a “relief from the political.” {The Female Complaint, 10.} This relief grants a kind of ignorant confidence—one rooted in what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick calls the “privilege of unknowing.” {} It’s relatively easy to be confident when you make middle-of-the-road choices. Just as there is a comfort in knowing that you’re engaging in sanctioned and approved-of activities—those that is bolstered by social encouragement and peer acceptance—there is likewise a confidence in ignorance of alternative ways and interpretations. The person privileged with ignorance looks around at everyone struggling to make it and wonders: why can’t they get their shit together? Likely, this person doesn’t know the challenges of being undocumented, or living with the trauma of abuse, or being disowned on account of one’s sexuality, or even the complexities of choosing to live against the grain of a social and political order that generates these harms.
It’s easy to be confident when you’re privileged with ignorance, and partaking in normative culture. But as soon as you start questioning and moving against mainstream sentiments, much of this confidence tends to evaporate, and frequently, a related anxiety sets in. Anxiety, in its extreme form, is typically a sense of dread associated with an anticipation of some terrible outcome, and is usually triggered by a sense of contingency and/or uncertainty about the future. It therefore makes sense that one would experience anxiety when they stray from norms, since contemporary norms tend to be fundamentally associated with aspirations. To abandon norms is to walk away from the confidence of a guaranteed vision of future comfort. As mentioned, anxiety tends to be triggered by a sense of contingency or indetermination, and these are fundamentally linked to freedom. When we realize our freedom and embrace the contingency of action, we are thrust into what Søren Kierkegaard calls the “dizziness of freedom.” This is the feeling one gets when looking over the edge of a cliff or a tall building, and one realizes that they possess the freedom to launch themselves off. The very fact that one has freedom can induce this kind of dizzying anxiety. Anxious worries are usually accompanied by a repetitive rumination of possibilities. This is the other half of anxiety: repetitive, unwanted intrusive thoughts. And it is here that normative doubt lives: “what if X happens?” “can I really cope if I don’t X?” “If I do X, what will I do when I’m old?” When we engage in alternative relationships, forego celebrated carers, elect not to invest in marriage or property ownership, etc., we are bound to feel some version of normative doubt (though we’ll call it jealousy, FOMO, “opportunity cost,” or just straight-up “instinct”). These are the contingencies that freedom delivers. When one hides from their freedom, and embraces the normative, there is a template that has mapped out many of the complex problems that the anxious deviator ruminates upon. For many, abandoning freedom is a small price to pay for the comfort and confidence that they get when they embrace the normative.
In effect, then, there are internal rewards for abandoning freedom and embracing the normative. In addition to this, there is, in our culture, an attractiveness to confidence. Some would say that confidence is the most attractive quality a person can have. So there are both internal and external rewards for being confident (and, often by extension, privileged with ignorance).
Needless to say, these conditions present a major hurdle for implementing social and cultural changes. If there are such strong sanctions (both internal and external) on deviation, what do we do in a moment such as ours, when we need to shift behaviors and change our culture? Is there a way to counteract this phenomenon? Perhaps the first step is to build new templates and to offer new guarantees on a communal scale: making better, more realistic commitments that are more flexible and resilient, yet offer positive visions for the future. Perhaps we can start rewarding members of our communities for deviating from norms in ways that move toward the kind of world we want to see. Perhaps we can affirm and uplift qualities we want to see, and the people who exhibit these, and stop lending support and affirmation to those qualities and behaviors that remain rooted in harmful dynamics. The advantage of this strategy is that it does not require everyone to face the pure desolation of absolute freedom forever, but instead carves out new coves and shelters for those who are able to move in new directions. Here, there is still always comfort and pleasure to be had, but it is mediated by a new, critically-informed framework (as opposed to a conservative, patriotic, religious, or economic one), which is collectively produced and defined.